


Five Stages Of Grief

by asslalonde (rawrmynameisval)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bad Parenting, Child Abuse, Incest, M/M, lol my favorite subject
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 05:22:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rawrmynameisval/pseuds/asslalonde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An account of an abusive relationship between Bro and Dave in terms of the Kübler-Ross model, or the "five stages of grief". The events take place mostly around Dave's sixteenth birthday. Used mostly to just explore the characters haha what a nerd</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Denial

You’ll admit, to anyone, that your bro can get pretty weird sometimes. But even then you try to be vague about what _kind_ of weird shit he gets up to, and exactly _how_ weird it really is.

You don’t mention to people that his favorite hobby is to invade your “personal space”.

You don’t mention that he makes you constantly uncomfortable.

You don’t mention how many times he’s touched you in ways you know normal brothers don’t touch each other.

You don’t mention that you’re a little scared of him, because sometimes you have no idea how far he’ll go.

When you were little you shared a bed with him, and you’d wake up some nights to him rubbing his body against you. He always made you sit on his lap when you two watched TV. And he wouldn’t let you get up, even if you had to pee really fucking bad.

As you got older, he started to be more subtle about it. Well, as subtle as Bro Strider can be. Sometimes he rubs your knee when it isn’t necessary. He’ll hook you by the neck as you walk past and kiss the top of your head. He reaches under your shirt or smacks your ass and then laughs at your flustered expression.

Sometimes he corners you in the kitchen and palms you through your jeans, before your tolerance meter runs out and you shove him away from you. He laughs and calls you a prude or a pussy, and says you can’t take a joke.

But you grew up with this. You can deal with it. And it’s not that creepy, it’s normal stupid brother stuff. No reason to sound the alarm. Not yet anyway.

Right?

When he gets drunk, he gets sappy and clingy. He cuddles up to you on the couch, embracing you with his giant, muscular arms and traps you there, so that even if he falls asleep holding you like that, you can’t get away. He’ll plant big wet kisses on your neck and try to get you hot by whispering things to you that you’d never dare repeat to anyone else, because you’d know they’d tell you that you need to get out of the house because your bro has lost his shit if he’s saying things like that to his little brother. He never gets too far though. He’s fallen asleep with a hand down your pants before, but that time you were able to become a noodle and slide right out of his steel bear hug.

You can handle this. Really.


	2. Anger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not my best work so bear with me here

Today was your sixteenth birthday. He and John’s Dad had conspired to send John down here as a surprise. You wish they hadn’t. You don’t want him to know about the way things were between you and Bro. 

But he behaved. You don’t think John noticed a thing. Which was good. Maybe. You have a recurring fantasy of John figuring everything out without you having to explain it all and rescuing you. That’s fucking stupid though. You don’t need to be saved. You’re totally fine. Bro’s great. He’s just. Overly affectionate. Sort of.

Egbert’s too oblivious anyway.

You opened your presents from Bro cautiously. A couple of new games (that he’d no doubt be hogging later), a couple of CDs, and a giant box of condoms. No, like, for real giant. Like he got a giant fucking box. And filled it with condoms. John laughed his ass off until he was wiping tears from eyes as you sat there uncomfortably, not knowing what to say. You get that in any other context, it would have been goddamn hilarious. But it was from Bro. It wasn’t just a playful joke coming from him. It was a suggestion.

“There’s even lube in here! Dave, look,” John exclaimed, still grinning like an asshole as he sifted through the sea of dick-wrapping fun.

You didn’t need to look though. He’d finally done it. He’d pushed your limit too far and you were breaking.

You shoved the box off your lap, ignoring John’s protest (“Hey!”), and stood up. Bro was lounging against the kitchen counter with a smirk on his face. You stared at him for a second, calculating, before grabbing a sword out of your sylladex and charging at him.

He saw it coming though. Your brief hesitation was warning enough. He flashstepped out of the way and let your blade slice the wood of the counter. Before you could pull it out and go for another blow, he’d captchalogued it and had your face shoved down on the counter. He twisted your arm back behind you painfully and you let out a distress call for help, sure this wouldn’t end well.

You couldn’t see or hear John at this point, but you know he was still frozen on the couch, at a loss for what to do.

Bro pressed himself against you, and leaned down so he could whisper in your ear.

“You’re gonna pay for that tonight, babe.”

He smacked your ass hard and when you let out a yelp, he laughed and let you go.

You stood up straight, trying to hide your burning face and the tears prickling under your skin, threatening to pour out like a waterfall. Bro was gone by then, and John was staring at you, still in shock.

"What was that?" John asked, but you ignored him.

“Move over, Egbert,” you grumbled, still avoiding looking him in the eyes as you sat down next to him and unpaused your game.

John was quiet, but he didn’t pick up his controller.

“Dude,” you prompted.

“Are you crying?” he blurted out finally.

You gritted your teeth and managed a shaky “no”, which of course he didn’t take as seriously as you’d liked him to.

“What’s wrong, Dave?”

You felt your face grow hot. The way he asked that question, the intonation of his voice--it was too intimate for you to handle.

“Fuck, you gonna keep interrogating me or are we gonna play?”

“Dave--”

“Jesus Christ, shut _up_.”

“Did I do something--?”

“No, you didn’t do fucking _anything_ ,” you growled. “So shut the fuck up and play already.”

John gave up finally and left you alone. You two didn’t talk much for the rest of the day.


	3. Bargaining

As the afternoon passed you felt yourself grow more and more anxious.

John went to bed first. You wanted to follow him. You wanted to curl up next to him so that when Bro drags you out of bed, he’ll notice the absence of your body heat and maybe--maybe he’ll try to help you this time.

But instead you stay there on the couch. You stare at the blue screen in front of you and wait for footsteps outside the door.

You know he’s drunk as soon as he walks in. It’s dark and all you can see is his silhouette. You don’t want to see his face, or the lecherous grin you’re so familiar with.

“Hey, _Davey_ ,” he croons as he leans down, one hand on the back of the couch behind you to steady himself. He kisses you on the lips and you don’t fight back.

You’re scared out of your mind. _Please. Anything but this._

“Waitin’ up for me?” he asks and his breath reeks of alcohol when he kisses you again. “How sweet...”

He captchalogues your shades and you can hear your heartbeat pounding in your head. You realize you’re trembling and you try to stop but you can’t. He stares right into your eyes. You look away but you can still feel his gaze piercing your skin. You feel helpless. Frozen. It is pretty cold in here.

He gets frustrated when he sits down next to you and you inch away from him. He hooks an arm around your neck and pulls you into another kiss. You try not to look so disgusted when he pulls away to examine at your expression.

You apparently don’t do a very good job. He almost looks a little hurt. _Really, anything._

“What’s wrong, kiddo? Don’t like me?”

You open your mouth to say something clever and scathing but nothing comes out. He laughs.

“That’s alright, I like you enough for the both of us,” he says as he stands again to unbuckle his belt.

Fuck. _Kill me now. Take my life. Just don’t let this happen to me._

“Bro--” you start, but you can’t finish.

“Come on, Dave. Take it _off_.”

You cringe away from him when he reaches for your shirt but he yanks it off of you before you can stop him.

He pins you down on your back and climbs over you. He leans down and you feel his tongue, hot and wet, swipe over your collar bone.

You gasp, and he takes the noise as pleasure. But you’re just cold. And off your guard. You don’t want this and you’re trying so hard to tell him with every bone and muscle and blood cell in your body but he isn’t listening.

He’s sucking on your skin now and-- _ow_ \--it’s starting to hurt like _fuck_ \--

“Bro, fucking _stop!_ ” you shout, and you shove his face away from you with all the strength you can get up.

You see you’ve cracked his shades when he sits up, still straddling your thighs. His face is twisted into a scowl. You swallow nervously.

He isn’t happy.

 

“Don’t,” you scream.

You don’t know how John can’t hear you.

“Stop,” you yell.

These walls must be more insulated than you thought. You’d just assumed all these years that Bro was just really fucking quiet.

“Come on, you like it,” is all he says in reply.

“Stop, stop,” you sob.

Your voice is getting hoarse.

“Please.”

“Quit strugglin’, princess. You’re just makin’ it hurt more.”

“Please, I’ll do anything, just stop,” you cry.

Tears stream from your eyes and you groan unhappily when he thrusts into you particularly hard.

“I won’t tell anyone, I swear,” you whisper.

You can’t take this much longer. It feels like it’s been going on for years.

“Bro, please, I’m your brother--”

“Oh, shut up, you’re adopted.”

You hate yourself with every shove of his hips. Loathing and disgust burns inside you, in your guts. Or maybe that’s just his dick ripping you open from the inside.

You know it’s your fault he’s being so rough. You shouldn’t have provoked him. You shouldn’t have broken his stupid ugly shades or come at him with that sword.

You guess he’s close because he reaches beneath you to grab your dick and start jerking you off. You’re completely soft. You have been for the whole time.

“Fuck--” he breathes against your neck. “ _Dave._ ”

You feel him cum and the tears start up again. Quiet this time. But you can’t make them stop. Your poker face has been stepped on, cracked, crushed under huge, heavy combat boots, and ground into dust. You’ve lost control of your body, your emotions. You try not to think too hard about what’s just happened. You try to ignore the fact that your _brother_ is the one who did this to you. Just for now. Or maybe forever. Because you just can’t handle it. Your body already feels like it’s been destroyed by armies. You’re hanging onto the arm of the futon like it’s your last shard of sanity, and maybe it is.

He pulls out of you and you feel horribly empty and unfortunately full. Everything stings. Everything burns.

“You bled a little,” Bro says, and his voice is flat.

You don’t answer. You just hold on tight. You can see your knuckles. They’re white. The blood probably drained out of them to leak out of your fucked-up asshole. Hah.

“Shit,” you hear him whisper.

There are rough, calloused hands on your hips trying to pull you off. You grit your teeth and don’t let go.

He grabs your fists and pries off your fingers one at a time.

One hand under your neck and another under your knees. He carries you into the bathroom.

You get an awful wave of déjà vu. You’ve seen this in a movie or read it in a book.

He drops your naked broken body into the tub, and turns on the water. It’s too cold and then it’s too hot until he gets it the perfect temperature.

You think he’s going to drown to you at first, but then he lifts you up and kisses your forehead. You can feel his panic in his every movement as he washes his guilt off you.

“Hey, hey,” he says, slapping your face gently to get your attention. As gentle as Bro Strider can be. “Listen, it’ll be okay. You’re okay.”

You ignore him. You don’t owe him a response. You’ve just given him your body and your dignity. Practically all you goddamn have.

“You’re gonna get better and we’re going to forget this ever happened and we’re never going to tell anyone, okay?” His voice is rough, a little angry. Like it’s your fault you feel, and probably look, half dead.

It is your fault, though, isn’t it?

You close your eyes. You just want to sleep. Just let me sleep.

“Alright, you can sleep. Just let me get you out of this tub first. Jesus.”

Oh, you guess you said that outloud.

“Fuck,” you hear him mumble under his breath, and you wonder fleetingly what’s wrong now.

You feel something on your asshole and you jerk away before you realize it’s just a washcloth. It hurts, but it’s a small comfort.

When you’re clean enough to his standards, he pulls your slippery limbs out and sits you down on the tile floor so he can dry you off.

He disappears for a moment, and then flashsteps back into the room with boxers and a t-shirt for you to wear. He helps you put them on.

It hurts to stand.

He doesn’t take you to your room. He lays you back down on the futon and throws a blanket over you.

“I’ll tell John you’re sick. He’ll be gone by tomorrow afternoon.”

You don’t answer.

He runs his fingers through your wet hair.

You want him to leave. He must pick up on this because he's gone seconds later.

It’s dark. It’s cold. You ache all over.

But this blanket’s warm and the worst thing that could ever happen to you is up moping on the roof and won’t be back until morning.


	4. Depression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had this finished for a while idk why i didnt update <333

When you wake up, your phone tells you it’s two in the afternoon and a text from him tells you your rapist won’t be back until eight.

You try to get up and go to the bathroom but your ass aches with memories of last night.

Won’t be able to shit for weeks, you think, though that’s probably not how that works.

Bro is out of the apartment--thank god. Or not. You don’t really feel up to thanking any deities for a while--so you decide to relocate to a room with a lock on the door. Not that it would really stop him. The Strider Residence is no stranger to door replacements. Or windows. Or walls. Or any kind of replacement really.

Emotional replacements too. Sarcasm for sincerity. Anger for grief and panic and a fuckton of others. Uncontrollable lust for unconditional love.

You shake your head. You’re starting to sound like Rose.

You make yourself a nest of blankets and pillows and you bury yourself in it.

You don’t leave your room for the rest of the day. You don’t get up, unless it’s to piss or scavenge for food. You sleep through the days and sneak out of your room only at night, or when you know by his schedule that he won’t be home.

You manage to avoid seeing his face for almost a week, and then you’re shaken awake and you open your eyes to see him sitting on your bed next to you. You close them right away but he doesn’t like that.

He shakes you again, more roughly.

“What?” you groan. 

“I gotta make sure you’re still alive. Haven’t seen you around lately. You feelin’ okay?”

Oh, I don’t know, it’s not like you ripped up my anus and traumatized me for life or anything.

“Yeah,” you spit. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I’m tired as shit.”

Jesus, just leave me alone. It’s not like you care anyway.

“Eating okay?”

“Food’s been disappearing from the fridge, hasn’t it?”

He lets out a chuckle and you wish you kind find comfort in that sound again but you haven’t been able to since you were nine.

“Alright, just checkin’.

You feel his body leave the bed and you let out a silent sigh of relief. Now you just have to wait for him to leave the room and--

“Hey,” he says, and you flinch. You thought he was done. “About the other night...”

Your stomach flips and you feel sick.

“I just wanna say I’m sorry about that.”

Oh God. You’re going to throw up.

“Next time, I’ll make sure it’s better for you."

Your mouth feels small and dry. Your eyes are watering. You hear him close the bedroom door behind him and you barely make it to the trash can in time before you start vomiting your misused guts out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the finale will be coming soon since i have most of that written already so keep an eye out for it over the next few days.


	5. Acceptance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cry, my pretties, CRY  
> im sorry i lied about when this would come out. i got lots of personal shit going on and had terrible writers block.

It’s been scientifically proven that if you tie up a dog and torture him for long enough with no way of escaping the pain, you’ll break his will to run away from you. And when you finally let him go, he won’t move. He’ll just lie there and wait for you to hurt him again, like the chain that held him to the spot is still there.

Rose told you about that. Some creepy-ass experiment these guys did in the late sixties. She was trying to explain to you what “learned helplessness” was. (She was the best teacher you’d ever had, though you’d never tell her that.)

You still think it’s funny you never seriously considered running away. But you get why. You get that you’re the dog being tortured and shit with no way out until there is and by then you just can’t do it. You don’t know if you can even live on your own, without Bro breathing down your neck while he fucks you again and again and again and again and--

You grew up with this. You’ve got no fucking clue how to deal with it.

So you just take it like you want it so he isn’t so angry all the time.

You get that he’s fucked you up so bad you’re too scared to leave him. You just wish you had the balls to hit him back next time.

But you wish a lot of dumbfuck things.

You wish you didn’t have all these shitty trust issues, hanging on you like sticky cobwebs and making you feel so heavy and tired all the time. You wish you weren’t so afraid of everyone you meet treating you like he does.

And you wish your friends weren’t so nosy. You wish Rose wasn’t so good at diagnosing all your problems. You wish she didn’t throw psychology terms at you that you know are true but don’t want to hear. You wish she couldn’t read you so well. You wish she hadn’t figured out what was going on between you and Bro so quickly. You wish she hadn’t told John after you asked her not to. You wish she had believed you when you said it was consensual and that it wasn’t actually as terrible as it sounded. You wish she hadn’t called the cops that one time to try to help you out. You wish Bro wasn’t so good at talking his way out of things. Which is what he did. And they left. Thinking it was a prank call.

You wish John would still talk to you without sounding like he’s scared of like triggering some traumatic memory or something. God, what a moron.

You wish Jade were online as often as she used to be, but ever since she left her little island paradise (you never visited her there like you promised) she’s been pretty busy with living in real life. You’re not sure if Rose told her or not. If she did, Jade never brought it up with you.

Rose and John both went to college. You aren’t sure you’d want four more years of school and you don’t think Bro would let you if you did. It’s not like you’ll ever need to get a job or anything. Bro has enough money for you to bum off of him until you die. Wow, your brother is literally your sugar daddy. Great.

...Fuck.

You don’t know if you can live with this for the rest of your life. But the idea of even going to get groceries by yourself practically gives you an anxiety attack.

He makes you sleep in the same bed as him now. So he can “get himself some sweet lovin’” anytime he wants. Apparently that means when you’re unconscious too.

At least he’s good at it. Sex, you mean. You know, when he isn’t forcing it on you totally dry.

He’s sitting next to you now, on the futon in the living room. Some movie you used to love is on the television but you’re kind of tuning it out. He makes you watch it every time he thinks you’ve been a debbie downer all day. You know exactly where this is going.

Soon as the last scene begins he slides off the couch and gets on his knees between your legs. He takes off his shades before he unzips your jeans, because he has this idea you like looking at his eyes when you two are getting it on. As if you really want to fuckin’ be reminded that he’s an actual human being.

You cum just as the credits start rolling. He swallows, per usual. You find yourself tugging at his hair as you come back down, and your muttered curses fade to quiet panting. Bro wipes his mouth on the back of his gloved hand and smiles up at you.

“Hah, you do still love me,” he says, satisfied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp thats it so i hope you enjoyed it  
> remember to rate, comment, and subscribe.  
> *double pistols and a wink*


End file.
